LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 5 

chap. J&%*_£33S~ 

Shelf 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. $ 



THE CHURCH-THE FAITH-TRADITION. 



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BY 



BENJAMIN T NDERDONK, D. D 

BISHOP OF THE DIOCESE OF NEW-YORK, 

AND PROFESSOR OF THE NATURE, MINISTRY, AND POLITY OF THE CHURCH, 
IN THE GENERAL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF THE 
PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
IN THE UNITED STATES. 



ONDERDONK & FORREST, 
Publishers, 4 John Street, 





crf^ ~? 



.<DC3 



[Entered according to Act of Congress, by ONDERDONK & FORREST, in the Clerk's Office 
of the Southern District of New- York, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and 
forty -four. I 



v 




PRINTED 3Y F. CLARKE. 115 FULTON STREET, N. Y. 



The following is the Sermon which the Author recently preached in St. Paul's 
Chapel and St. Clement's Church, with, however, a large addition since it was 
preached in St. Paul's, and some further addition since it was preached in St. 
Clement's. B. T. O. 



New-York, Jan. 4, 1844. 



Qnmon. 



2 Timothy i: 13,14. 

" Hold fast the form of sound words which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in 
Christ Jesus. That good thing which was committed unto thee, keep by the Holy Ghost, which 
dwelleth in us." 

The Gospel is that system of faith and practice which God has 
caused to be written for the best interests of men in time and 
through eternity. By it alone they can attain to true holiness 
and happiness here ; and it only shows them the appointed road 
to future everlasting glory. 

As His instrument for preserving and extending this Gospel in 
the world, its Divine Author has been pleased to establish His 
Church. That Holy Society is constituted the pillar and ground 
of the truth. In this capacity it is divinely commissioned to re- 
tain the truth, to preach the truth, and to hand it down to all 
generations, and diffuse it throughout the earth. As a principal 
agency herein its ministry was originally commissioned by Christ 
Himself, with power to transmit the commission to all future 
time. To this ministry, in order to the fulfilment of this its im- 
mense, holy, and comprehensive design, is committed the dispen- 
sation of the sacraments, whereby men are to be brought into the 
school, family, or Church of Christ, and there receive and pro- 
fess the truth, and enjoy the grace and mercy, which are provid- 
ed for all faithful subjects of the evangelical covenant. To the 
ministry too it appertains to conduct the sacred services in which 
the Church holds communion with her Divine Lord, commends 
herself to His care, guidance and blessing, seeks for her members 
the varied benefits which they need at His hands, prays for the 
world lying in wickedness, that it may be brought to the saving 
knowledge and consistent practice of the truth, and renders her 



6 



meet tribute of thanksgiving, praise, and adoration ; and in which 
the precious faith of the Gospel is carried home to the heart, 
warms the devout sensibilities, and is thus most effectually estab- 
lished in the understanding. The ministry is also God's appoint- 
ed agency for proclaiming the messages of salvation, and all the 
holy revelations connected with them which fill the Sacred Scrip- 
tures, and for founding on them the instructions that result from 
that study and meditation, which, duly exercised on God's word, 
with faithful seeking of His grace, have promise of direction in 
the right w T ay, and guidance to a right end. 

Holy Scripture and ancient authors clearly show that in the 
fulfilment of these great ends of the Church and its ministry, 
there have, from the first, been duly appointed and established 
forms of worship, and other symbols, summaries, and standards 
of the faith given to the Church by Christ and His inspired apos- 
tles ; and that there has also been a recognized authority and disci- 
pline to enforce their observance, and save the Church from the 
influence of false teachers, and their unchristian doctrines, effectu- 
ally enlist and preserve its members in the true faith and practice 
of the Gospel, and commend them to the adoption of the world. 

All this, in the primitive purity of the Gospel, was compara- 
tively simple and easy. The love of Christ, shed abroad in the 
hearts of believers, was pure, warm, and operative. The evan- 
gelical principle of communion with Christ through the medium 
of His Church, was universally admitted and put in practice. In 
waiting on the ministrations of the priesthood of that Church, 
Christians sought guidance in the heavenly doctrines and precepts 
of the Gospel. Their pastors, being the apostles themselves, or 
those brought up at their feet, or at theirs who had enjoyed the 
personal instructions of the apostles, or who had learned Christ 
while the deep impression of those instructions still remained in 
the Church, urged upon them principles and precepts bearing the 
hallowed stamp of apostolic truth and purity. Great too was the 
simplicity of those primitive and truly evangelical instructions. 
Unconnected with temporal welfare and civil distinctions, and 
made indeed the object of bitter and eager persecution, the Church 
had nothing to offer her members but the testimony of a good 
conscience, humble reliance on the approbation and favour of 



? 



their Divine Master, and the hope of future eternal reward. It 
was therefore their main anxiety to receive the Gospel as its 
Great Author had given it to them. They knew it was from 
God, and that it was therefore the best, and exactly as it should 
be. As soon would they have questioned the propriety and fit- 
ness of the order of the natural world, and attempted to show 
how much better than under the existing arrangement, day and 
night, summer and winter, seed-time and harvest, might have 
made their revolutions, as have presumed to sit in judgment on 
the revealed system of the Gospel. As soon would they have 
deferred the use of food for sustenance, and of medicine to heal 
their sickness, until they could have thoroughly investigated and 
understood how they were to produce their wonted effects, as have 
hesitated about receiving those doctrines, and walking in those 
commandments and ordinances of the Gospel, which were set 
forth and appointed for nourishing their spiritual life, healing 
their spiritual maladies, and preserving them unto life everlasting, 
until their reason could comprehend every thing, and present it 
to them as what itself could have as well discovered or enforced. 
They were content to know that God was in heaven, and they 
upon earth ; that He was infinite, and they finite ; that He was 
acting for them because of their incompetency to act for them- 
selves ; and that He neither could nor would deceive them. 
Their only inquiries therefore were, What is of God ? What does 
He teach ? What has He caused to be written for our learning, 
and incorporated into the system of that Church which He has 
established for our spiritual and eternal good 1 Upon receiving 
satisfaction on these points, their only and immediate conclusion 
was, Therefore this is right — this is truth — this is duty. Humble, 
cheerful, and devout acquiescence becomes me. Grateful to my 
Heavenly Father for having ordained and required it, I will not 
presume to sit in judgment upon it. 

Under this primitive, truly evangelical, and — all the proud 
boasting of reason falsely so called to the contrary notwithstand- 
ing — truly reasonable state of things, the Christian pastors had, 
in their instructions, little else to do than simply urge, in Scripture 
language, the doctrines and precepts of the Gospel. The exhorta- 
tions which accompanied their public ministrations were generally 



8 



short and simple. With little of studied argument or learned 
elucidation in their explanation or enforcement, they kept before 
the people the standards of their faith, and pressed them on their 
devout and consistent practical adoption. 

Instances indeed there were, even thus early, in which the pre- 
sumption of human intellect began to show itself. More inge- 
nuity of head than sanctification of heart was sometimes brought 
into the Christian ministry, and led to the introduction of specious 
doubts, to indulgence in fanciful speculations, and to a bold spirit 
of innovation and perversion. Thus crept in heresies to soil the 
purity and mar the unity of the body of Christ's members. 

The Christian pastors were called to meet these difficulties. 
Prompt discipline soon placed heretical teachers where, separate 
from the Catholic Church, there was little danger of their errors 
spreading. For then the unity of the Church, as connected with 
unity of faith, and essential to it, was held dear, and considered in- 
separable from the true love of Christ, and real devotion to His 
service. Then the great adversary had not so far succeeded in 
his wicked designs on the glory of God, the purity of the Gospel, 
and the influence of true piety in the world, as to recommend, 
under the false appearance of liberality, indifference as to who is 
heard, or what is heard, provided preaching is attended, curiosity 
gratified, taste pleased, and the frightful name of bigot avoided. 

These beginnings of errors gave increased force, even in the 
apostles' days, to the fitness, usefulness, and necessity, of symbols 
or summaries, and standards of faith, called in the text, and else- 
where in Scripture, forms of sound words, forms of doctrine, good 
confessions, sacred deposites, and the like. They were in part 
incorporated into the Church's prayers and praises, and in part 
declaratory forms of Christian profession. They embodied, as far 
as they went, the faith actually held by the Church, under the 
teaching of Christ and His inspired ministers, even before it was 
recorded on the pages of the New Testament. These declaratory 
forms of profession appear to have been originally very brief, 
embracing merely a few of the leading facts and principles of 
the Gospel, which were denied or corrupted by false teachers. 
For the rest, Christianus sum, I am a Christian — such was the 
prevailing godly concord of the Church— was sufficient. 



9 



In process of time, however, the state of the Church began to 
change. Even within its own borders, oppositions to the primi- 
tive faith increased in number and in influence. This was, in a 
good measure, the consequence of Christianity being embraced 
by the great philosophers of the day. Many of these, having 
been, in their respective schools, more accustomed to the exercise 
of the head, and indulgence in ingenious speculation, than the 
government of the heart, and a severe and disinterested adherence 
to the truth, and not suffering their conversion to be so thorough 
as to bring every high imagination into the obedience of Christ, 
were prone, after their admission into the Church, and even into 
its ministry, to exercise a rash and daring ingenuity on the Chris- 
tian system, and thus often present it in a distorted shape, and 
with no small mixture of alloy. 

Others of these converted philosophers, from a sincere desire to 
recommend Christianity to their former brethren of the schools, 
were induced to endeavour to prove to them that it would admit 
of close philosophical investigation, and was not, therefore, as it 
had been represented, unworthy of adoption by an enlightened 
and scientific mind. This was indeed true. But the effort too 
often presented a successful temptation to push the researches 
and investigations of reason beyond the bound, which she herself 
prescribes, of entire subserviency to the will and wisdom of Infi- 
nite Intelligence. 

Often, too, a pious and disinterested effort to meet and coun- 
teract the unfavourable operation of these several causes, by 
being carried too far, led to counter-speculations, which increased 
the evil it was designed to remedy. 

All these circumstances, giving rise, from time to time, to new 
phases of departure from the simplicity and integrity of the Gos- 
pel, all professing to be drawn from the Scriptures, led to gradual 
additions to the symbols, creeds, or confessions, by which the 
Church declared her sense of the Scriptures, and would enlist 
in what she held to be the truth as it is in Jesus, the profession of 
her members, and the instructions of her pastors. 

In this, however, the Church acted simply in her character as 
a witness. She did not undertake to establish truth, but to de- 
clare it. As points not before heard of were introduced into the 



10 



teaching of her pastors, she subjected them to the test of that 
system which Christ and His apostles had left to the Church, 
and a record of which had been gathered in the New Testament. 
When plausible pretext for such points was found in their sup- 
posed accordance with Scripture, she inquired how the part of 
the Scripture concerned had been understood by the great body 
of Christians from the first ; assuredly gathering that that was to 
be received as sound in preference to the conjectures and criti- 
cisms of individuals. Her decisions in the premises were of no 
authority in themselves ; and were urged by her simply on the 
ground of their conformity with the catholic faith which had 
been revealed to the Church, and registered in the New Testa- 
ment. Thus arriving at the truth, she exercised the authority 
which her divine Loud had committed to her, by enforcing the 
profession of it on her members, and its faithful teaching on her 
pastors. They were required to hold fast the form of sound 
words, in which revealed truth was embodied, and had been 
handed down, and to keep that good thing committed to the 
Church, or the sacred depositum of the faith received from Christ 
and His apostles. 

The sound principle herein concerned cannot be better illus- 
trated than by reference to the ground on which we receive that 
symbol of faith, had in reverence by all enlightened advocates of 
the doctrine of the Trinity, the JYicene Creed. 

The spirit of sect, always welcome to the carnal mind, had 
divided heathen philosophers into divers schools or parties, dis- 
tinguished each by some favourite theory connected more or less 
remotely with the current idolatry. None of these was more 
extensively ramified, or exerted a wider influence, than that of 
the gnostics. Many of its professors and teachers were among 
those who made early show of conversion to the Christian name. 
I say show of conversion, without meaning to say that the con- 
version was in all cases unreal. In many, it was doubtless sincere 
as far as it went. That is, their reason was satisfied that Christ 
was a wise and good teacher, having a fair claim to respect and 
confidence ; and that His religion was so virtuous and good that 
it ought to be embraced. Their devotional feelings and views 
too, and sense of religious obligation, were drawn into ready 



11 



sympathy with its infinite superiority, as a system of piety, to 
the religion in which they had been nurtured. But at the same 
time, they found it hard to bring their intellectual pride into sub- 
jection. Their former systems had given them certain notions of 
a derived and subordinate divinity. These they coupled ith wthe 
Scripture views of the nature of Christ, and conceived of Him 
as an exalted creature, endowed with some, but not with all the 
attributes of Deity. What, in the eye of sound catholic inter- 
pretation of Scripture, was evidence of the co-existence in Christ 
of the human with the divine nature, they construed, in their 
individual rendering of Scripture, into proofs of His falling short 
of full and supreme divinity. Their system, appealing to that 
pride of the unrenewed heart which revolts at subjugating pri- 
vate judgment to superior authority, and urged with zeal and 
eloquence, gained ground. At length large numbers of Chris- 
tian teachers and disciples were found who believed and repre- 
sented the Gospel as not favouring the doctrine of the real and 
full divinity of Christ. Thus, from the same sacred pages, the 
judgment of one party drew one conclusion, and that of the other 
quite a different one. 

Christianity had by this time received the assent of the head of 
the Roman empire, and become the religion of that wide-spread 
power. The Bishops and pastors of the flock of Christ were natu- 
rally and devoutly anxious that these doctrinal differences should 
be healed by union in the true faith. The emperor, although not 
yet a member of the Church, was evidently very honest and sin- 
cere in his preference for Christianity, and his desire to promote 
its interests, and have it for the religion of his people. He par- 
ticipated in the desire to settle, if possible, this cardinal point of 
the true nature of Christ. Here, however, were learned men on 
both sides, and on both sides men of piety, honesty, and sincerity, 
who differed from each other, each appealing to the written word. 
This written word, that is the New Testament, it must be borne 
in mind, is an inspired minute and record of a faith previously 
existing, with occasional explanations, illustrations, and defences 
of it; very deficient, however, in systematic arrangement, and 
evidently designed to exercise Christians in that inquiry, search, 
and study, which make the embracing of the faith a moral act, 



12 



wherein the will and understanding are to be largely concerned. 
The question to be settled was, which of the systems — for it is 
evident that with either point, the truth or the falsehood of the 
doctrine of Christ's supreme divinity, is necessarily connected a 
system widely different from that connected with the other — the 
question was, which of the systems was the true one. The rea- 
sonable ground taken by both the emperor and the pastors of the 
Church was, that if they could ascertain what had been from the 
first the faith on this point of the whole Church, that must be the 
true meaning of the inspired text, and therefore, the required 
faith of Christians. The emperor, accordingly, summoned a coun- 
cil of Bishops from all parts of his empire, to meet at Nice, and 
hence called the Nicene Council. It met in the year of our Lord 
325, and was composed of about 300 Bishops from all parts of 
the Christian world. Among them were many aged men whose 
knowledge of the Church must have reached back to a period 
when it was under the government of Bishops who must have 
received their knowledge of the Church and its doctrines from 
pastors but two or three degrees removed from the last of the 
apostles. These men, too> and those who had handed the faith to 
them, be it remembered, had held it through bitter persecutions, 
when the testimony of a good conscience was their only support, 
the world frowned on them, and their sole hope was in the ap- 
probation of Heaven, which, without conscientious adherence to 
the truth they could not expect to enjoy. These men assembled, 
not to give their private judgments as to what was truth and 
what not, but to bear testimony as to what had been the received 
doctrine in their several portions of the Church, for as long an 
antecedent period as recollection or testimony could reach. Upon 
a full investigation of the matter, it appeared that in all parts of 
Christendom, and from time immemorial, the supreme divinity 
of Christ had been the received doctrine of the Church. The 
question then naturally occurred, Whence could this doctrine have 
arisen ? The universal practice founded upon it of worshipping 
Christ as God, must have been downright idolatry, if the doctrine 
was not true. Could the whole Christian world have been sup- 
posed to have fallen into idolatry at so early a period ? Clearly 
not. This catholic doctrine, then, furnishes the true light by 



13 



which to interpret and understand the Scriptures when they speak 
of the nature of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Hence 
the value and authority of the Nicene Creed. It is not merely 
a summary of the private judgments of the venerable fathers 
who set it forth; but their testimony to the faith which the 
Church had maintained from the first, even before the Canon 
of Scripture was complete, and therefore from the direct teach- 
ing of the inspired apostles. 

As my purpose in introducing this point was merely to illus- 
trate a principle, I have given to this whole Creed its usual 
title of Nicene, although there are some points in it which were 
added, as formidable objections arose, by a subsequent similar 
process. 

This mode of arriving at the truth, or in other words the right 
use of tradition in that matter, is much misrepresented, if charged 
with the substituting of human for divine authority. Not so. It 
is merely a reasonable and necessary mode of arriving at a know- 
ledge of divine revelation. As given to us, that revelation of 
course requires to be interpreted. As it was not completed until 
after the Church was in full possession of the faith, the fact of 
what faith that was which the Church had before the inspired 
record of it was made, is clearly the best rule by which to inter- 
pret and understand that record ; or in other words, by which to 
know what is the truth which God has given to His Church. 

For the correct understanding of this view, we must again 
bear in mind the fact that the record given in the New Testament 
of the faith of the Church is far from being a systematic one. 
It has been wisely put in another shape, and consists mainly of 
incidental notices and illustrations. The favourable moral bear- 
ing of this has been before noticed. 

This incontestible fact, however, derogates not from the suffi- 
ciency of the Scripture record. 

The experience of the Church of God in all ages, evinces the 
utter inadequacy of mere tradition to hand truth down unadul- 
terated and unmutilated. We should, therefore, regard as an 
unspeakable mercy the kindness and love of God in causing to 
be written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, that New 

2 



Testament in which there is a record or notice of all that He, in 
His infinite wisdom, has appointed to be held by His Church as 
of obligation. Whatsoever, therefore, cannot be proved by that 
sacred volume, is not in any wise to be maintained as of neces- 
sity to be believed or practised It is, however, nevertheless, 
true, that much that is there but incidentally noticed, or but infer- 
entially deducible, is proved to be of obligation by that light of 
primitive catholic tradition, which shows it to have been a part 
of the evangelical system bequeathed to the Church by Christ 
and His apostles. 

Familiar illustration of this is afforded in two points very ex- 
tensively conceded to be of Scripture obligation. I refer to the 
religious observance of the first day of the week, and to the 
bringing of little children to Christ by the sacrament of baptism. 
You will look in vain in the New Testament for any direct pre- 
cept enforcing either of these duties. In the earliest developments, 
however, which we have of the Christian system, we find both 
held as of sacred obligation. In the New Testament we find 
records which clearly intimate that the first day of the week had 
religious services performed thereon, and one reference to a day 
termed the Lord's day. We therein also find such references to 
baptism, and to connection with the Church, or covenant relation 
and appropriation to Christ, as clearly intimate that children 
were, and should be, made members of His Church. In the 
history of the primitive Church we find that the first day of the 
week was religiously observed, and that children were baptized, 
as matters of religious obligation. Hence the conclusion that the 
parts of Scripture mentioned are evidence of duty in the premises; 
that is, that it is a part of the system of Christ's religion, as re- 
vealed in the New Testament, that Sunday should be religiously 
observed, and that children should be baptized. 

I trust, my brethren, that I have now made it appear that tra- 
dition is valuable as a rule for the right understanding of the 
word of God. Whenever you hear of its being set up as another 
rule of faith and practice, you hear of that which has no founda- 
tion in truth, as it respects the principle involved, and which is 
equally untrue and unjust respecting the fact of that principle 



15 



being held by any who rightly appreciate sound catholic doc- 
trine. 

Thus the true catholic use of tradition is to serve as a means 
for a right understanding of Holy Scripture, Without the sanc- 
tion of this it can enforce nothing as of obligation. It is, 
however, of invaluable benefit as a rule for the right interpreta- 
tion of Scripture. To this end the early Church incorporated its 
teachings into liturgical exercises, and symbols of religious pro- 
fession. These constituted the form of sound words which was to 
be held fast, and the sacred depositum which was to be kept by 
the Holy Ghost, that is, through grace given by Him. 

In process of time, however, this sound evangelical view of the 
matter was superseded by the unchristian dogma of the infalli- 
bility of the Church of each particular age, and her competency 
to make articles of faith on the ground simply of ecclesiastical 
authority. Tradition became exalted to an equality with God's 
word as another rule of faith and duty. Worldly influences, with 
which circumstances powerfully invested the Church, gave to 
this principle an extent and degree of operation, which, combin- 
ing with a rapid deterioration of intelligence and knowledge in 
the community, sank the reason and consciences of men under 
the weight of a spiritual despotism, of a pressure and extent, of 
which an idea can now hardly be formed. This, unchecked and 
unguided by the true spirit and principles of the Gospel, demand- 
ed subjection — and compelled it by fire and sword, prison and 
torture in this world, and terrific anathemas, presenting to the 
affrighted imagination all the miseries of eternal condemnation — 
to the most flagrant departures from Gospel truth, and the most 
awful perversions of Gospel precepts. Gross was the darkness 
which, gradually thickening and spreading, at length covered 
that large portion of the Christian world which owned allegiance 
to Rome. Substituting the Church's unauthorized dogmas for 
true catholic and scriptural verity, it kept the people in ignor- 
ance of God's word, and sank them to an awful depth of moral 
and spiritual degradation. But the Lord God Omnipotent still 
reigned. The Church was still His. He remembered His ever- 
lasting covenant. He thought upon His promises. When He 



16 



saw that the wise purposes of this severe discipline were answer- 
ed, He determined to send deliverance. The power which once, 
by a word, dispelled the darkness that covered the face of the 
deep, still was His. In this blackness of moral and spiritual 
darkness, He still saw His Church. He had suffered her to drink 
deeply of the cup of humiliation which her own remissness and 
transgressions had prepared. He had let her test the sufficiency 
of the unhallowed substitutes for which she had departed from 
the pure and holy religion committed to her. He had made the 
wrath of man to praise Him by showing the awful consequences 
of forsaking His guidance. The remainder of wrath He would now 
restrain. In His just judgment, He had suffered such corruptions 
as ordinary means might, by His blessing, remove, to oppress His 
Church. He had permitted her to eat the fruit of her own way 
by wandering from the truth, — to such a distance only, however, 
that men might be the means of reclaiming her without super- 
natural interposition on His part. But in two essential respects, 
wherein ordinary means could do nothing for her, He had faith- 
fully fulfilled His promise of still being with her. He had won- 
derfully preserved that divine revelation, and that divine ministry, 
of which the loss of either could be restored only by supernatural 
divine power. 

From the darkness of error and superstition in which that reve- 
lation and ministry, by His gracious providence, retained their 
genuineness, He would now release His Church. Let there be light, 
was His high behest • and there was light. A spirit of inquiry 
was excited. Scripture and primitive antiquity were searched to 
know whether the things that had been taught were the truth. 
Conscientious conviction was wrought that they were not. Deep 
study, elevated devotion, inflexible purpose, zeal and labour unto 
death, were given to the work of reform. The erroneous and 
strange doctrines which had been allowed to mar the form of 
sound words, and the foreign and impure incrustations which had 
gathered around the sacred depositum of the faith, were removed. 
Uncatholic and unchristian additions and appendages to the an- 
cient liturgical services were stripped off. The primitive creeds 
were brought out in their just prominence, and the unhallowed 



17 



dogmas which had been entwined around them until they were 
almost out of sight, were cast down to wither and die on the 
polluted soil that bore them. The heretical and schismatical 
departure of the papacy from that ministerial organization in 
which the living God had formed His Church the pillar and 
ground of the truth, was thrown off, and the ministry restored to 
the form which the Divine hand had given it. The members of 
Christ were restored to the privilege of worshipping in their own 
tongue, the blessed Book of God was read constantly in their 
ears, and prepared for being placed in their hands, in the same 
tongue ; and the ordinance of preaching, so good and essential to 
the use of edifying, brought back to its proper place and pro- 
portion in the public ministrations. Then were restored to the 
people of God the form of sound words, and the sacred deposi- 
tum of the faith, in a catholic liturgy and catholic creeds — and 
because catholic, therefore strictly evangelical^which, in the 
primitive simplicity and purity of the Church, had been God's 
instrument for guarding and preserving the Gospel, and extend- 
ing its benefits to men. 

I speak, brethren, you are aware, of that portion of the Church, 
so richly blessed of God, in which ours had its immediate origin. 
Elsewhere, it is to be lamented, the protestant work was con- 
ducted on different principles, and with far other, and sometimes 
most deleterious results. They set not up the catholic standard, 
but seemed mainly bent on change. To go the furthest possible 
from any given point of error, they seemed to cherish the obvi- 
ously wrong and truly dangerous idea, was to arrive the near- 
est to the truth. The consequence was, they threw off as popish 
much which the papal system had retained from those happy 
days of the Church, when it had not yet marred and corrupted 
the Gospel system. 

The time soon came when the Church of England was called 
to illustrate, in her position at home, her true character of a mean 
between two extremes. There were of her ministers and mem- 
bers two classes, besides those who duly appreciated the great 
and good things which God had done for her, and were true to 
the pious obligations thence arising. One of these classes, unwill- 

2* 



18 



ing to submit to the catholic system, went back to the popish, 
and organized under intruding bishops, and holding allegiance 
to a foreign prelate, became the English papal schism. The 
other, finding in the sound Christian prudence and moderation of 
their Church, too little room for their love of change and novelty, 
threw off the organization under which Christ had established 
His ministry, rejected the scriptural safeguard to the truth, and 
aid to devotion, found in an evangelical liturgy, and organizing 
on the loose and slippery principles of protestant dissent, formed 
another schism, which unhappily has served too well the cause 
of the great author of dissension, by giving rise to many schisms. 

Amid these Romish and Protestant departures from catholic 
and evangelical principles, the Church of England stands, God's 
witness of His unfailing mercy in blessing the land with the form 
of sound words, and the sacred depositum of the Gospel. And 
to us of this Republic a similar blessing has been vouchsafed by 
a branch of the same noble vine which God's right hand has 
planted here. Although differing very materially in outward 
circumstances and relations, yet in the spiritual character in 
which the present purpose requires us to view them, the Church 
in England and in this country may be regarded as one. Each, 
in its respective nation, is the true and scriptural and therefore 
legitimate branch of that Holy Catholic Church of Christ which 
apostles established in Jerusalem, in Antioch, in Rome, in Ephe- 
sus, in Crete, in all places whither they bore the standard, pre- 
pared the ground, and set up the pillar, of the truth as it is in 
Jesus. In each it is the Church in and of its proper country, in 
that purely catholic and evangelical sense in which there was a 
Church -of Jerusalem, of Antioch, of Rome, of Ephesus, of Crete, 
long before the civil power was any other than the bitter oppo- 
nent and cruel persecutor of the Church. The Church in Eng- 
land, the Church of England, is not such by virtue of any civil 
adoption or establishment. It is such because it is the true and 
legitimate branch in England and of England, of that kingdom 
which is not of this world — that kingdom of which Christ is 
the Head — His Holy Catholic Church. The same is true, with 
regard to this country, of our own communion. The emissaries 



19 



of the Pope are intruders here, having no right of jurisdiction, 
on scriptural and catholic principles, over the people of Christ's 
pasture. Organizations on non-episcopal principles, are, by the 
same Scripture and catholic rule, self-deprived of such right of 
jurisdiction. I have no fear then of being misunderstood, and 
trust I have an honest and fair claim to exemption from being 
misinterpreted, when I speak of there being an American Church, 
the Church in and of America, and of its being one, on scrip- 
tural, primitive, and catholic principles, with the Church of Eng- 
land. 

This united Church, it has appeared, is blessed with a form of 
sound words, a sacred depositum, embodying and enforcing that 
evangelical system which Christ and His apostles left to the 
Church ; which was held fast and kept with a holy jealousy 
while the Church was in its primitive purity ; which, for a long 
time, was guarded and defended from error as it arose ; which, 
however, in just judgment for the sins of the daughter of Zion, 
God at length suffered to be mingled with erroneous, strange, 
and grievous departures from the truth as it is in Jesus, even 
until it became, in their midst, almost as a little one among ten 
thousand ; but which, when that God saw fit to send deliverance, 
was shaken clear from these, and again appeared in its native 
excellency and beauty. 

This form of sound words and holy depositum, is found mainly 
in those creeds which our Church received from times when the 
evangelical system was fresh in its divine purity, and in the litur- 
gy which was carefully gathered from the worship of the same 
period, and from subsequent materials compared with that wor- 
ship by all the jealous watching and minute comparison which 
men could give, who, in both enlightened understandings, and 
pure evangelical sensibilities and affections, were devoted to cath- 
olic truth, and zealous against papal error. The holy men who 
severed those creeds and that liturgy from their corrupt alliances 
took indeed the sacred Scriptures as their guide ; but they leaned 
not so to their own understanding as to cast off due respect and 
reverence for primitive catholicity. They appealed to the holy 
fathers in proof of the soundness of their protests against popish 



20 



errors. They interpreted the Scriptures by that best rule which 
is afforded by the received catholic doctrines of the primitive 
Church. He is untrue to the principles of the English reform- 
ation who would underrate the value of this right use of tra- 
dition. 

The creeds and liturgy, then, thus, by God's overruling provi- 
dence and grace, brought to us from primitive times, are the 
main depositum of our faith, the chief form of sound words em- 
bodying the evangelical system once delivered unto the saints. 
Articles of religion and homilies have been added for the more 
precise delineation and defence of points in this system, rendered 
necessary by peculiar states and junctures of the Church. 

Our articles and homilies are indeed, as well as our liturgy, to 
be cherished as standards of our catholic system, of great value, 
and of vital importance to our unity, purity, and efficiency. Those 
articles and homilies, however, are subsidiary to the liturgy. They 
were designed to illustrate, enforce, and defend the system incor- 
porated into the liturgy long before they were formally set forth. 
They are, as it were, comparatively modern comments on the 
ancient liturgical digest of the Gospel system of faith and duty. 
This should be borne in mind in all our efforts to arrive at the 
correct meaning of the articles and homilies. The pervading 
catholic spirit and principles of the liturgy must be understood as 
designed to be incorporated into them too, and to be duly influen- 
tial in the true understanding of them. 

The articles and homilies also differ from the liturgy in the 
fact of their being in a good degree controversial documents, 
designed to meet peculiar errors of the times. Like all contro- 
versial writings, therefore, a correct knowledge of the circum- 
stances giving rise to them, and under which they were prepared/ 
is necessary to a proper understanding of them. 

Allowing due influence to these principles, the articles and 
homilies will be found a most valuable accompaniment, and aid 
in its blessed objects, to that form of sound words, and depositum 
of the truth, with which we are favoured in our liturgy. 

Thus shining in the light of God's truth, the Churches of Eng- 
land and America, stand, as we have seen, a witness against error 



21 



on both sides — on the one, against the hostility to the Gospel 
system which is embodied in the forces marshalled under the 
banner of the Roman pontiff — on the other, against the motley 
hosts, whose name is legion, assembled without the Catholic 
camp, and claiming the common appellation of Protestant. 

In this position it is not to be matter of surprise if members of 
the Church, failing in just understanding and appreciation of her 
claims, should be drawn by influences bearing on the weaknesses 
or prejudices of the natural heart, and thus decline, sometimes to 
the one sometimes to the other side of truth's straight path. Time 
has been when the Church, too secure in its temporal ease 
and prosperity, has slept while the enemy has sowed the tares of 
fanaticism, confusion, and misrule. Sometimes zeal greater than 
knowledge has alarmed the Church's sons with the idea of her 
imperfect devotion to the cause of Christ, and lured them to seek 
in dissenting ranks greater conformity to the spirit of their Chris- 
tian profession. Sometimes honest dread of one or other point of 
erroneous and strange doctrine or practice, has led to a formida- 
ble array of influence in directions opposite but equally erroneous. 
Now tendencies have threatened to popish, and now to protestant 
departures from the truth, unstable souls have been beguiled 
thereby, and anxiety and fear and serious alarm have been 
excited because of such defections. Meanwhile, however, the 
Chinch has stood. Her standards of faith and devotion, and her 
free, open, and perpetual appeals to Scripture have, by God's 
blessing, been her preservation. Faithful pastors and faithful 
members have not been indifferent spectators of these things. 
Understanding their character and operation, looking to God to 
guide them aright in the emergencies thus created, and fully own- 
ing and feeling the duty of meeting them properly, and striving 
by divine aid to gather profit from them for both the Church and 
themselves, and turn them to her good, and her Lord's glory, 
they have been blessed herein, and joy has filled their grateful 
hearts to see how all has been beneficently overruled. 

And thus, brethren, it will ever be, if we have true faith. The 
Lord hath done great things for us indeed in the form of sound 
words which He has given us, and that good thing committed 



22 



unto us, the sacred deposition which we have of the faith once 
delivered to the saints. That " form" let us " hold fast in faith 
and love which is in Christ Jesus." That "good thing" let 
us " keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us." Mistaken 
or false friends may stir up strife within ; foes may assault with- 
out ; the Lord of hosts will be with us, the God of Jacob will be 
our Refuge. 

Now, especially, it behooves us, brethren, to be jealous with a 
godly jealousy of the security which the Lord has provided for 
us in our holy liturgy. They are to be feared who would weak- 
en its hold on the minds of our people by encouraging in them 
the false impression that it is well to seek often, in other modes, 
livelier and purer exercises of evangelical devotion ; and they 
who favour amalgamations, alliances, and co-operations, which 
represent Christian exertion as better made extraneously from 
the Church, and in at least indirect sanction of unchristian sys- 
tems, than strictly within her holy borders. They should be had 
in great honour who, in this day of mournful departure from the 
evangelical principles and spirit of sound Catholicism, aim and 
strive for their restoration, and manifest the honesty of their pro- 
fession of devotion to the Church as it is, as by jealous avoiding 
of all compromise of her principles and appointments, so by at 
least an undissembled readiness and willingness to enjoy and pre- 
sent the Church as it is in its godly provisions for daily assemblies 
for prayer and hearing, the divine word, and at least as oft as 
Sundays and holy days urge their peculiar claims, seeking God's 
favour, and sheltering themselves under His love, in the eucha- 
ristic recognition of His redeeming mercy. 

If thus, as the Church provides, Christians would, in the true 
faith and spirit of the Gospel, have their time and attention pre- 
occupied by devotion, and by the best means of growing in grace 
and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the 
Church would be less injured by unsanctified speculation and 
godless controversy ; a salutary reverence for holy things would 
take the place of the profane intrusion into them which now 
insults the Majesty on high ; and zeal for the Church appearing 
in its only legitimate connection with the renewed and sanctified 



23 



affections of the Gospel, the enemy would be ashamed, having 
nothing to say against us, malicious prating would be silenced, 
and Zion, at unity in itself, would have inscribed on every stone 
of the great and glorious temple within whose walls the High 
and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity designs that all men shall 
yet be brought, the true and blessed motto, Holiness unto the 
Lord. 



THE END, 



I THE CHURCH 



—THE FAITH-TRADITION. 



E E8 M © M 



j BENJAMIN T. ON.DSRDONK, D. D 



BISHOP OF THE DIOCESE OF NEW-YORK, 



AND PROFESSOR OF THE NATURE, MINISTRY, AND POLITY OF THE CHURCH, 
IN THE GENERAL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF THE 
PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
IN THE UNITED STATES. 



ONDERDONK & FORREST, 
Publishers, 4 John Street. 



18 44. 



or THE 

PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCHES 

IN THE CITY OF NETS 7 - YORK. 



EY HENRY M. ONDERDONK, 

"WITH THE APPROBATION AND T^NEER THE St'PERVISIOS" OF THE 

33is1)0|) of \\)t Btocesc. 



EMBELLISHED WITH A HIGHLY FINISHED ENGRAVING OF EACH CHURCH ON STEEL, 

EXECUTED BY J. B. FORREST. 

The above splendid work, now in course of publication by Onder- 
tone; & Forrest, contains a correct and authentic History of the 
Episcopal Churches in this city, and is embellished with exquisite 
Steel Engravings presenting accurate and spirited views of the dif- 
ferent edifices as they now exist. Neither pains nor expense are spared 
by the Publishers to render the work worthy a liberal patronage, and 
to make it, in all respects, one of the most elegant productions that 
has ever emanated from an American press. The typography is exe- 
cuted in the most beautiful style, upon paper of the finest quality, w T ith 
stereotype plates cast with great care from new type made expressly 
for the purpose. 

The whole work will be completed in about Fourteen numbers, 
at Twenty -ErvE Cents each, payable on delivery. No. I., containing 
a view of Trinity Church, and one of St Paul's Chapel, has been 
already issued, and a second edition is now printing to supply the 
demand. No. II., containing St John's Chapel and St. George's 
Church is now in press and will be ready for delivery in a few days. 
A number contains sixteen imperial octavo pages and two engravings. 
Subscribers have the advantage of the first impressions from the 

plates. 

C3r* Payments in advance are unauthorized by the Publishers. ^CJi 



Publication of \\}t Stxmons 

NOW IN COUFSE OF DELIVERY IN ST. PAUL'S CHAPEL AND ST. CLEMENTS 
CHURCH, NEW- YORK, 

0. & F. propose to publish the above Sermons, (or as many of 
them as can be procured,) separately, in pamphlet form, as soon as 
they can be prepared for the press, equal in all respects to the present 
one, which constitutes the first of the series. 

The desire manifested on all sides, for a more intimate acquaintance 
with the distinctive doctrines, and universal teachings of the Church, 
both by those within and those without her fold, has encouraged the 
Publishers to hope that a ready sale will support them in their efforts 
to meet this demand ; and the plan of their enterprise having been 
extensively approved, they also trust that they will be sustained in its 
execution by the clergy and members of the Church. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



021 897 753 4 



